Another example of China’s respectable growth, despite the global economic crisis, is apparent in this month’s Fortune magazine, with its Global 500 list[1] of the world’s largest companies. The 37 Chinese firms[2] that made the list is all the more impressive when you consider just six companies made the list in 1998, as Worldfocus pointed out on its blog[3] and on its television program.

In the following video clip, Fortune global editor Brian Dumaine[4] says the increasing number of Chinese Fortune 500 companies is all about the country’s economic growth. “It’s a growth story,” he says, “and if you look at where most growth is going on, it’s not in the developed world, it’s in the developing world.”

Despite the successes of a number of Chinese companies, other developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region are all but completely absent from the Fortune’s list. Of developing countries, only Thailand[5] is listed with its state-owned oil and gas company, PTT Public Company Limited[6], which has been on the list for at least the past several years.